Over recent weeks, this theme has shown how hair can often be linked to powerful cultural signifiers, many of them conflicting, which influence our perception of ourselves.

So-called ‘bikini line’ shaving is a similarly expressive act. Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues contains an episode narrated by a woman whose husband insists that she completely shaves her pubic hair, returning her to a child-like virgin state, for her husband’s enjoyment. It focuses on the discomfort the woman feels in doing this, and the empowerment that comes from her refusal, as she makes an assertive choice about her body and her sexuality. Shaving in this reading signifies a form of patriarchal control.

In fact, women’s sexuality is often linked to our sense of the ‘wild’, something to be feared, controlled, tethered and domesticated. In the same way that the ‘wild’ becomes civilised, and woman’s sexuality tamed, so her body hair is neatened and ordered - as an external sign of the ‘civilising’ process.

‘Wild’ and ‘tamed’ can also be read as metaphors for madness and sanity, with proactive or deviant sexual expression or even lack of chastity taken as a symptom of madness or feeblemindedness. (‘Feeblemindedness’ was a term coined by the emerging profession of social workers in the early 20th century, and was particularly applied to women who had children out of marriage.) Again, this can be expressed through hairiness of the body or untamed, unorthodox hair on the head. Shakespeare’s Ophelia is perhaps one of the most famous western examples of this: the description of her death by drowning, her hair loose and strung with wild flowers, is full of sexual innuendo.

In Sikhism, however, hair is considered sacred. So the removal of hair from any part of the body is forbidden, for both men and for women. Uncut hair is called Kesh and is one of the five holy Ks. For Sikhs this signifies the acceptance of the natural form given by God. Especially for orthodox men who wear turbans, it is a way of marking them out from other people. Holiness, in this theological reading, is linked to separateness, where to be holy is to be set apart for God. Whether shaved or deliberately unshaved, hair is just one of a number of signs that indicate this separation.

For example, ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish women customarily have their heads shaved before marriage. This goes back to a traditional idea that they will then be attractive only to their husbands and their chastity will therefore be preserved. However, is it also now usual for married women to wear a wig or head-covering, in preference to shaving their heads. Rather than referring to their sexual practice, this then simply marks them out as members of their faith, performing a similar function to a Jewish man’s kippot, or skullcap.

In the case of skinheads, head-shaving similarly indicates a rejection of traditional values, although this time it is linked in our cultural imagination to extreme right-wing politics, male aggression and violence, football hooliganism and neo-Nazism. Head-shaving in this instance signifies something quite different to a lesbian-identified woman who shaves her head as an expression of her private sexuality. But cultural identities continually clash. And hair, or the lack of it, is often a focus when challenging stereotypes and defining or redefining identities. Is it possible to be a lesbian skinhead or a dyke with long hair and shaved legs?

SKINS by Gavin Watson "Just another youth cult", or "a threat to world peace"? Coming soon to Arts & Cultures, Gavin Watson's controversial photo-essay on British skinheads, updated from his book SKINS.

In western culture, shaving products are marketed on the basis of the virility associated with shaving: a razor said to make someone more manly and attractive to beautiful women, or (perversely) a fragrance to make him more sensitive and boyish (and therefore more attractive to beautiful women). Here, shaving is often regarded as a father-to-son rite of passage, something that ‘makes you a man’ – whatever form that takes in marketing-speak.

Just like a hairstyle, beards can be disguises or masks allowing a man to perform his identity. Shaving a beard can be perceived as an act of sedition. Shaven, he becomes a ‘new’ man. In popular culture, beards perform a powerful transformative function: they can turn someone into a down-and-out, Santa Claus, a prophet, Jesus, Mohammed or even God…